Singapore Residence | Neri&Hu Design and Research Office
HOUSES•SINGAPORE
Architects: Neri&Hu Design and Research Office
Area : 1185 m²
Year : 2021
Photographs :Fabian Ong
Manufacturers : JUNG, Duravit, Zucchetti
Interior Designers : Neri&Hu Design and Research Office
Structural Engineering : JS Tan Consultants Pte Ltd
Landscape Consultant : Nyee Phoe Flower Garden Pte Ltd
Products used in this Project
Light Switch - LS 990
JUNG
Light Switch - LS 990
Partners In Charge : Lyndon Neri, Rossana Hu
Senior Associate In Charge : Christine Chang
Design Team : Sela Lim, Bella Lin, Kevin Chim, Alexander Goh, Haiou Xin, July Huang
Mep Engineering : Elead Associates Pte Ltd
Lighting Consultant : P5 Pte Ltd & Light Basic Studio Pte Ltd
General Contractor : Space Scope Pte Ltd
Steel Construction : Luen Soon Iron Works
Doors And Window Construction : Lital Materials & Contracts Engineers Pte Ltd
Local Design Institute : K2Ld Architects
Country : Singapore
The siheyuan, a classic Chinese courtyard house, is renowned for serving as an example of Confucian virtues and housing extended families with many generations living together under one roof. Living together implies sharing a home, and this metaphor serves as the connecting thread between the idea of community, particularly in an intimate setting, and the shape created for this project. Neri&Hu is given a set of unusual requirements by the client for this private residence commission: the new house built in place of the old one should accommodate all three siblings, who as adults have outgrown their shared house; it should include a small memorial space in the form of a garden for their late mother; and finally, the new construction should preserve the memory of the pitched-roof form, a defining feature of their childhood home.
The former residence was constructed in the British colonial bungalow design but included hybrid elements from traditional Malay homes, such as thick roof eaves for rain protection and Victorian accents. Neri&Hu embrace the symbolic nature of the pitched roof and mix it with a reimagining of the courtyard house because they recognize the roof's functional relevance and the client's emotional affinity to its form.
Neri&Hu investigated the spatial expression of ideas of communal living and collective memory in this project.
Designers have kept the luxuriant vegetation that formed a natural green buffer along the perimeter of the old site's edge. The social areas of the new two-story house are arranged around a central garden that takes up the courtyard area and serves as a memorial garden for the family matriarch. Extroverted in nature, the ground level features large glass walls to connect all spaces to the gardens along the site's edge. The living room, open kitchen, dining room, and study are common spaces where Neri&Hu seek to enhance visual transparency so that from the ground level, residents may see into the central memorial garden while being sheltered by the thick foliage around the house. In ideal temperature circumstances, large glass doors can swing open to allow the house to benefit from cross ventilation and easy access to the gardens.
For the upper level, Neri&Hu follow the notion that the pitched-roof form serves as both a symbol of refuge and a
boundary between the public and private spheres. The home retains the appearance of a single-story hipped-roof bungalow when viewed from the exterior since all private bedrooms, which are placed on the upper introverted level, are contained within the steep gables of the roof. Bedroom balconies with views of the surrounding garden spaces are connected by skylights and huge glass walls. The design team adds three double-height rooms using sectional interplay to link the social areas and the corridors above. One can look up into the public domain from the private sphere thanks to these gaps of interpenetration that create vertical visual linkages.
Before reaching the main memorial garden, one can see a little tree being framed by a hollow that has been cut out of the roof volume. The outside walls change from smooth to board-formed concrete to resemble wooden planks where balconies and sky wells are created out of the volume of the pitched-roof structure. To emphasize the ambulatory sensation of going in circles and designate the memorial space as a sacred feature, the ground floor circulation is based on the shape of a circle. The circle's lack of edges and terminating points makes it possible to always find a route back to the center, both literally and spiritually. The garden serves as a metaphor for the home's interior, which is represented by an ever-present void that serves as the backdrop to everyone's daily existence as a whole.
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